Future Manufacturing is for anyone interested in applying new technologies to making physical products. By bringing together people with artisanal, digital manufacturing and creative design skills, the group exists to support collaboration between designers, makers, coders and traditional crafts(wo)men.

Crowd funding, cheap technology, and open source/networked collaboration have revolutionised digital creativity and created a whole ecosystem of start-ups and digital cottage industries. Now 3D-printing, CNC-machining, laser-cutting and other 'hard' technologies benefit from the same processes. We have reached the age of the downloadable product, of mass-customisation. Now, we can own the means of production. In a post-industrial, arguably post-capitalism, era, the way in which we design, prototype, fund and distribute products will change.

The group is open to hackers, coders, makers, knitters, artists, inventors, sculptors, designers, architects… to anyone involved or interested in the process of producing physical artefacts using digital technology.